Nicola Grauso (Cagliari, 23 April 1949-Cagliari, 18 May 2025) better known as Nichi, was an Italian businessman, publisher and politician.
Biography Son of Mario, a trader of Neapolitan origin, he graduated in law from the University of Cagliari in 1975.
Birth of Radiolina In 1975, Nicola Grauso created Radiolina, the first private radio station in Sardinia and among the first in all of Italy, certainly the oldest among those that have survived. The adventure began in an apartment in Viale Marconi in Quartu Sant'Elena on 19 June 1975 thanks to a military transmitter recovered from a market for equipment and war remnants in Livorno, two plates and a small mixer. Soon the radio station moved to Vico Duomo 1, in the Castello district of Cagliari, in order to have a higher broadcasting position and reach a greater number of users. The programs of a certain importance were broadcast from 7am to midnight and received widespread acclaim, because the novelty of an organized free radio station was strong on the island. In the schedule there were the traditional dedications, information and music led by Super Arsenico, a doctor who at the end of his ward work moved on to the radio console, transmitting the listeners' messages and everything that was alternative: from rock music, to folk and jazz. Initially Grauso and his collaborators were considered pirates and the first criminal complaints arrived pursuant to Law 103 of 1975. For four days, from Tuesday 9th to Saturday 12 July 1975, they were forced to forcefully interrupt their broadcasts. Despite the ministerial offensive, the block on the occupation of frequencies was soon overcome because, at the end of September 1975, the competent judge acquitted those responsible for the radio with a very specific reason: the provisions on the radio broadcasting monopoly should not be applied to local over-the-air broadcasters. A historic ruling that caused a sensation at a national level and was a trailblazer for all broadcasters. However, the acquittal sentence was subsequently challenged by the Public Prosecutor's Office and Radiolina was once again awaiting trial. Despite the bureaucratic vicissitudes, the broadcaster did not stop and a few months after its debut it expanded both in circulation and in the schedule, reaching the point of covering 24 hours and a large part of the district. True antenna freedom will only arrive on 28 July 1976 with the famous sentence number 202 of the Constitutional Court which affirmed the principle of the non-invokability of the limitation of frequencies as regards local transmissions.
Videolina On 6 September 1975, a few months after the beginning of the radio adventure, Grauso decided to conquer the television world as well by starting the broadcasts of Videolina. With the debut of Sardinia's first over-the-air television and a few other broadcasters on the peninsula, the history of private broadcasting in Italy began. «Born when it was difficult to be born»: this was one of Videolina's slogans to underline how the Cagliari-based television station had contributed to opening a breach in the communication monopoly which was then the exclusive prerogative of RAI. At the beginning he broadcast from channel UHF 38, albeit only for a few hours a day. Videolina's first schedule featured black and white programs, cartoons by Bruno Bozzetto and pink neorealist films. There was no shortage of news, local sports and island folklore. A few months later, and only partially, the broadcasts will switch to the PAL114 color system, preceding Rai on this occasion, which will only begin to broadcast regularly in color from 1 February 1977 for 3 hours a day on each of the two networks on the air at the time.
In 1979 Grauso took over two other stations founded in the meantime in Cagliari, La Voce Sarda and Bibisì, starting a phase of expansion completed by the positioning of transmitters and repeaters on the peaks of the whole island, creating "electronic bridges" which will also be used by Silvio Berlusconi's networks. The pioneering spirit of Videolina in the early days no longer existed: in its place a real company had arisen, whose signal reached 80% of the Sardinian population.
In 1982 Nicola Grauso was among the few publishers to remain close to Maurizio Costanzo (something Costanzo claims to have never forgotten), ousted from the small screen due to the P2 scandal in titlehe found himself involved. The king of talk shows hosted the Sunday program Dopo cena on Videolina for 14 weeks, an experience that preceded the birth of the later Maurizio Costanzo Show on Rete 4.
Another important editorial choice that made Videolina a point of reference for the Sardinians was to focus on information, arriving in 1988 to continuously broadcast (based on the CNN model), an identical news program every half hour, with the possibility of any updates and news developments. Viewers thus abandoned the habit of listening to the news at certain set times.
The success and acquisition of L'Unione Sarda On 17 May 1985, thanks to the success of the now ten-year editorial experience of Videolina and Radiolina, Nicola Grauso purchased the main daily newspaper on the island L'Unione Sarda. At the time of the acquisition, the newspaper was, together with L'Osservatore Romano, the last newspaper to still use lead and linotype. With a further investment of 20 billion lire, Grauso quickly revolutionized everyday life which was profoundly modernized. In 1986 the first computers arrived in the editorial office and the process of electrification and telematization of printing began, replacing lead printing. In the editorial office of L'Unione Sardaa real revolution was witnessed, a "cultural" change of epochal significance. Everyone began to follow retraining courses and prepared themselves for the new way of operating.
The inauguration, in 1987, of a modern press center also contributed to this evolutionary phase. The new system allowed the printing of up to forty pages of the newspaper, also in color and with special inserts, cutting-edge packaging-shipping lines and printing of national newspapers such as Corriere della Sera, Corriere dello Sport - Stadio, La Gazzetta dello Sport, Il Sole 24 Ore, all transmitted electronically from the continent. The facility, located near the Cagliari-Elmas Airport, with its modern architectural profile, was at the time the largest and most technological printing center in the Mediterranean.
The new management contributed to growing the budgets with advertising revenue and to retaining readers with collateral initiatives (such as prize games, contests, winning gadgets and re-bindable attachments). The peak of Grauso's innovative drive at the helm of the island newspaper occurred in July 1994: L'Unione Sarda became the first newspaper in Europe available online, the second in the world after The Boston Globe.
Grauso's editorial experience crossed the borders of Sardinia in 1989 with the purchase of shares in "Rinascita editrice Spa" (owner of the magazine Rinascita, then directed by Alberto Asor Rosa) and of Set, the publishing company that owns Il manifesto.
Experience in Poland Being convinced that he has no possibility of movement in Sardinia, due to the political battle against him, in spring 1991 Grauso started crossing Italy's borders by becoming co-owner, through the STEI (Società Televisiva Italiana), of Życie Warszawy, the main newspaper of Warsaw and the second of the entire nation. The two regional editions Zycie Czestochowy and Zycie Radomskie were also included in the deal. Grauso's offer, economically lower than that of communication giants such as the British Maxwell Communication Corporation or the French group Hachette, prevailed thanks to the full support of the president Lech Wałęsa, of the Solidarność union and of the journalists who supported the Sardinian project from the beginning, especially for the planned modernization plan in the offer which followed the experience of purchasing L'Unione Sarda with heavy investments in computerization and the printing centre.
Grauso kept his promises by providing all the necessary funds for a total renovation. First he rented a theater that belonged to the defense secret services in the city centre, which was transformed into an original "open space" editorial office. In the stalls there are stations for journalists and polygraphers, in the gallery there are offices. He then built, in record time, a modern press center on the outskirts of the capital and equipped the editorial staff with latest generation computers thanks to which journalists could already do all the work themselves. The graphics were also modified, involving Piergiorgio Maoloni, a personal friend of Grauso, and made more captivating by giving ample space to quality photography, drawings and cartoons. The production of daily inserts and supplements dedicated to women, work, culture, the economy, young people and sport also began.
Grauso's ambitions, however, did not stop there; his idea was to create the first truly private national Polish TV. The first step, in August 1991, was the purchase of the PTV Echo television network, and subsequently began the installation of antennas in key points of the country: Warsaw, Kraków, Gdańsk, Szczecin, Łódź and Lublin. By early October, the number of stations increased to eleven and by the end of 1992 there were now six local television stations controlled by Grauso. On 11 March 1993 the official announcement of the birth of Polonia 1, in the form of syndication between 12 local broadcasters which reached 20 million Poles. The new company aimed to provide local newspapers with a common schedule of national and international programs thanks to agreements signed by Grauso, for programs and advertising, with Sacis (RAI) and with Fininvest. The broadcasts of Polonia 1 began on Sunday 18 April with the lyric opera Don Giovanni by Mozart and a six-hour schedule with unprecedented Western-style purchasing advice.
The birth of Polonia 1 occurred in the absence of a national broadcasting law which will arrive only at the end of 1993, assigning a single frequency for a national private TV station. Grauso's syndication will thus have to compete with 27 other companies including CNN, Reuters, Canal+ and the German group Bertelsmann. Despite the important groups involved, the frequency was assigned to an entirely Polish company. All attempts at resistance on the part of Grauso were useless and in March 1994, when the game was over, he promoted a major television event live on all syndication televisions: he rented the Teatro Wielki, the largest in the capital, and brought in the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala with maestro Riccardo Muti. The concert was an unforgettable event: among the excellent guests the former president Francesco Cossiga, among the absent the name of Lech Wałęsa stood out. A big party in the halls of the Bristol hotel was the apotheosis of the event, but also the symbolic epilogue of the Polish adventure.
Faced with the impotence of being able to counteract the new political balance, and despite the transfer of Polonia 1 broadcasts to satellite, Grauso got rid of the station in February 1996 by selling it to Finmedia S.A. Luxemburg by the Italian entrepreneur Mariano Volani. Shortly afterwards it was the turn of Zycie Warszawy and the innovative printing center which in May 1996 were sold to the entrepreneur Zbigniew Jakubas.
The birth of Video on Line